10 Tips For Living Healthy On A Budget

Jul 24, 2021

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10 Tips For Living Healthy On A Budget : It’s not easy to stay healthy on a budget. Organic food can be expensive, gym memberships are costly, and the allure of cheap and sugary sustenance is ever-present. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way. There are ways to live healthy without breaking the bank, and they can be easy as well as less costly for you. With the right attitude and approach, you can maintain a healthy lifestyle without spending every last penny. Here are 10 tips for living healthy on a budget.

Swap costly ingredients for cheaper ones
When you’re trying to create healthy meals in the kitchen, the cost of ingredients can really add up. Ingredients like pine nuts, truffles, and mirin might sound like the exclusive province of the rich, but they’re actually part of a lot of healthy recipes. They’re extremely expensive to procure, however, so where possible, try finding substitutes for expensive ingredients. These could include maple syrup for vanilla extract, for example, or almonds and cashews instead of pine nuts.
Ditch the gym membership
If you’re trying to stay healthy and save money at the same time, then it’s time to wave goodbye to that gym membership. Signing up to a gym absolutely isn’t necessary for getting healthy or losing weight, since you can replicate many of the resistance and cardio machines you’d find in a gym at home or outdoors. Instead of hitting the treadmill, try going for a run in nature. You could buy a set of dumbbells, but you can also lift regular household objects like milk cartons, detergent, or potatoes!
Make tea and coffee at home
When you buy coffee from a cafe or coffee shop, you’re often signing up for lots of additives and extra unhealthy ingredients that you don’t need, especially if you’re grabbing lattes with syrups. Instead, try making coffee at home, and for a real health boost, switch to tea. If you drink green tea instead of coffee, your cholesterol could drop, you might notice an improvement in acid reflux and heartburn, and you could get a better night’s sleep as well.
Plan meals ahead of time
If you get to the evening and you don’t know what to eat, that could drive you to spend money on ready-made meals. This is a much costlier alternative to simply making your own, so be sure to create a meal plan ahead of time so you know exactly what you’re eating. By doing so, you’ll also be able to ensure that your meals are healthy all week, because you’ll know exactly what you’re putting in them. Be sure to stick to the plan, though, even if you feel yourself flagging.
Try going veggie
Going vegetarian (or even vegan) can be hard for a dedicated carnivore, but it’s a good way to save money. By swapping meat for healthy but cheap ingredients like beans or chickpeas, you’re not only being smart with spending, you’re also potentially improving your health. Studies suggest we’d all be healthier if we swapped to a diet that either doesn’t incorporate meat or incorporates it sporadically, so look into making meals without meat. You’ll be glad you did!
Use YouTube workout tutorials
Instead of buying the services of a costly (but undeniably effective) personal trainer, try looking for some workout tutorials on YouTube. Plenty of fitness instructors offer workouts across the whole range of experience, so whether you’re a beginner or an expert, you’re bound to find something that works for you. This also means you don’t have to feel bad if you falter slightly halfway through the workout, so it’s got more benefits than just lowering the cost of your fitness regime.
Save leftovers
There’s no reason to throw out the rest of that meal you made yesterday. Why not save it, put it into containers, and freeze it? By doing so, you’ll have lunches or main meals ready for the rest of the week, and you’ll barely have spent any money in the process. This works out significantly cheaper than preparing or buying a new lunch every day, and you’d be surprised just how easy it is to craft a meal that’s good for seven portions. Not only that, but leftovers somehow taste better the day after you’ve made the meal!
Use free trials
This is more of a money-saving tip than a healthy lifestyle pointer, but if you want to keep the cash in your wallet, try taking advantage of as many free trials as possible. Instead of signing up to an ingredient service immediately, for example, or a bespoke workout plan, see if there’s a 30-day free trial available. This has the added benefit of helping you to figure out if this is the service for you, and if it isn’t, you can walk away without having lost anything at all.
Drop the screens at night
This is an incredibly inexpensive way to improve your mental health and sleep quality – in fact, it’s totally free! Blue light is harmful to the production of melatonin, which is the hormone that’s responsible for governing your sleep-wake cycle. Guess what your phone emits tons of? Yup. Turn off your phone or put it on silent around an hour or two before bed, and whatever you do, don’t use the time before you sleep to check social media, because that will just make you more anxious.
Sell stuff you don’t need
If you’ve got lots of junk accumulated around your house, you should consider selling it. This has plenty of health benefits; less clutter will improve your mood, you’ll get exercise clearing out the stuff, and you might be able to raise some funds in order to buy new workout gear or more healthy ingredients. Holding a regular clearout is a ritual we should all be pencilling into our calendars, so if you’re a low-key hoarder, take a step back and assess whether a tidy-up is in order.